Burn Fat With Brown Fat

Sounds intriguing doesn't it to burn fat with brown fat.

What is brown fat?

Brown fat in contrast to white fat has a higher number of mitochondria, which makes it brown. Its primary function is to maintain and generate body heat. It especially helps infants, which have a larger amount of brown fat than adults, to stay warm. It has been recently found that brown fat resembles skeletal muscle rather than white fat. It is also in skeletal muscle that brown fat can be found in adults, especially in the neck and chest areas.

To produce energy, brown fat burns white fat for fuel. That is why there is much interest in medical research to understand how to make more brown fat and activate it to help us burn white fat, which is partly responsible for obesity, heart disease and cancers.

Hormone That Links Exercise To Health Benefits

New research led by a group at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has found a chemical messenger that links exercise to health benefits throughout our bodies. They call this hormone Irisin. Irisin is located in the outer membrane of muscle cells and signals the activation of the metabolic regulator PGC1-alpha. Their research has found that prolonged exercise increases the levels of irisin and activates PGC1-alpha. The result of increased irisin levels is better control of blood sugar and insulin levels and a small amount of weight loss.

They also have found that increased levels of irisin also switches on genes that convert the bad white fat into good brown fat. The one thing that irisin does not do is make muscles stronger, however, Only exercise can give you that result.

Conclusion

We now know how to make more brown fat with exercise and increased levels of irisin. However, switching on the brown fat to burn white fat is still difficult. Cold temperatures switch on brown fat. That may be why I find it easier to control my weight in the winter months. I always seems to gain a little in the summer months, even though I'm more active. But, I doubt that many of us are willing to sit in a freezer for an hour everyday to switch on our brown fat to start burning white fat. So, the search is still on to learn an easy method to switch on our brown fat. For now, exercise is still the best way to burn that bad white fat in our bodies.

Charles